{"id":32459,"date":"2018-06-22T17:16:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-23T00:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/?p=32459"},"modified":"2018-06-22T17:16:56","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T00:16:56","slug":"mahdavikia-optimistic-about-irans-chances-versus-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2018\/06\/22\/mahdavikia-optimistic-about-irans-chances-versus-portugal\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahdavikia optimistic about Iran\u2019s chances versus Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tehran Times – TEHRAN, Iranian legend Mehdi Mahdavikia says Team Melli have potential to beat Portugal to book a place in the 2018 World Cup next stage for the first time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite their defeat against La Roja, Iran’s fate is still in their own hands. Whatever happens in Spain’s final group match against Morocco, the Iranians know that a win over Portugal will see them into the round of 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeam Melli have defeated Morocco in their important match and we can advance to the next stage with a win over Portugal. Why not? It\u2019s a difficult task to do but we played well against Spain and have the potential to defeat Portugal,\u201d Mahdavikia told Tehran Times.<\/p>\n

Speaking about Iran’s defensive tactics against Spain, Ex-Team Melli winger said, \u201cWe defended with nine players against Spain in the first half but after we conceded the goal, we changed our tactic and created some scoring chances. It shows Iran have the potential to break through,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mahdavikia also defended Sardar Azmoun, who is under pressure for poor performance against Morocco and Spain.<\/p>\n

Azmoun had minimal impact, largely marked out of the game by well-drilled Spain.<\/p>\n

\u201cCriticism is normal in football but we have to see what Carlos Queiroz has wanted him in these matches,\u201d Mahdavikia said.<\/p>\n

Mahdavikia, who was selected as the Hamburger SV Team of the Century in 2012, also praised Cristiano Ronaldo and said Iranian defenders have to be aware of the player\u2019s threat on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMessi is a genius but he won’t change anything individually. I think we can frustrate Ronaldo and Portugal with a great teamwork,\u201d Mahdavikia added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tehran Times – TEHRAN, Iranian legend Mehdi Mahdavikia says Team Melli have potential to beat…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26307,"featured_media":32460,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,92,89,93,86,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c47-featured-news","category-c21-international-football-news","category-c16-iranian-legionairs","category-c22-players-spotlight","category-c13-team-melli-news","category-world-cup"],"views":1120,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32461,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32459\/revisions\/32461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}